TECH STOCKS: Investors Cash Out Some Gains

Stocks tumbled across the board Thursday as traders, apparently spooked by negative revenue news out of General Electric, cashed in some of their recent gains. Technology stocks were not immune, as seen in the 2% decline in our InformationWeek 100 index.

GE said its short-cycle May order for plastics was down 15% to 20% from last year, leading a number of brokerages to lower their earnings estimates for the company and sending its stock tumbling 3%.

The market sell-off came despite a better-than-expected unemployment claims report for last week and a 1% jump in the nation's leading economic indicators in May. Not all the news was bad, as some semiconductor and chip equipment vendors gained Thursday, including Motorola, whose stock rose 34 cents, or 3.6%, to $9.62.

Our InformationWeek 100 fell 5.68 points, or 2.2%, to 254.11, while the Nasdaq index as a whole fell 28.48 points, or 1.7%, to 1,648.66. The Nasdaq-100 Index tracking stock closed at $30.46, down 46 cents, or 1.5%. More than 75 million shares were traded. The Dow Jones industrials fell 114.27 points, or 1.2%, to close at 9,179.53, while the S&P 500 fell 15.40 points, or 1.5%, to finish the day at 994.69.